CEO of Sydney Port Development Corp. finds rail study encouraging

This file photo shows a section of Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway. The CEO of the Sydney Port Development Corp. says that while the pricetag may be high, she finds the results of a study on the costs of repairing Cape Breton’s rail line encouraging. - Cape Breton Post

Rehabilitation of rail line could be done in two years, she says

SYDNEY, N.S. — It’s got a massive pricetag attached to its rehabilitation, but the CEO of the Sydney Port Development Corp. says she finds the results of a study of Cape Breton’s rail line encouraging.

“I had heard people throw out a number of hundreds of millions and after careful consideration, they came forward with the price of $103 million which, to me, is not unsurmountable,” Marlene Usher said in an interview Monday.

The study completed by consultant HATCH, released last week, noted that while a significant amount of work will be required to get Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway functional again to accommodate traffic from a possible container terminal development, it should be possible to do so within a two-year timeframe, a new study states.

However, serious challenges remain, including the limited resources that the railway company has available to do the necessary maintenance and the lack of local capacity to perform the scope of work required.

Usher said that, if sufficient projects have been identified to provide traffic for the railway, the federal and provincial governments will come forward to provide infrastructure funding to assist with the required upgrades.

“You have to remember that the life of rail is 40, 50 (years) so any return on investment could easily be justified through that length of time,” she said.

Nothing identified in the study really surprised her, Usher said, noting the scope of the work required to bridges was missing from the earlier Canarail study.

Rail is key not only to any possible container terminal but any future development in Cape Breton, Usher said.

“If we lose the rail it’s lost forever and it won’t be long before the tracks will be taken up and it will be unlikely that right of ways will be re-established and so, in my mind, it is essential,” she said.

The container proposal does have a transhipment strategy, Usher added.

The next 12 months or so should prove critical, she said. The amount of investment needed will require a business plan for getting traffic on the line and without that plan no level of government nor the line’s owner will put the necessary dollars into it, Usher said.

She acknowledged it’s unlikely a small railway company like owners Genesee & Wyoming would be able to shoulder the investment required on its own.

The study noted that the rail, which hasn’t seen traffic since 2014, has started to rust. Geotechnical issues affecting track stability and safety that were noted that would need to be tackled in the short term would include bank slide, culvert collapse, washout repairs and cliff stabilization.

Usher said while it would be tight, she believes a two-year window to get the railway funding as a Class 1 link that would allow for traffic up to 10 miles an hour would be possible and could be tackled concurrently with other components of a container development.

“Two years is a tight timeframe for the bridges but it’s doable if things fall into place,” Usher said.

Charlie MacLean, chair of the Scotia Rail Development Society, said the work may be expensive but we can’t afford not to do it.

“The province spends between $450-500 million a year building and maintaining roads and we’re ruining the roads with heavy truck traffic,” he said. “We’re tearing the roads all to hell and a lot of that stuff should be on train.”

MacLean said he has spoken with one local businessman who used to bring raw goods in by rail and would like to expand his business but is unable to due to the lack of rail service and the prices he must pay to have product brought in by truck.

“There’s no way we can afford not to do this,” MacLean said.

He added he believes it would make sense for government to take ownership of the short line, refurnish and then charge reasonable rates for using it.

“Government money is spent here, there, what-not all over the place on things that perhaps are less important than this railway,” he said. “This railway is critically important to Cape Breton.”

The loss of rail would mean the end of any heavy industry in Cape Breton, MacLean said.